Arcam or not??

Guest

Hi all, my first ever post here so I hope I dont go over well covered ground..
Im building an extension which will be a large TV room, I want to put together a great system to enjoy my collection of DVDs and watch football with my mates..
Plan so far..a room 16 feet x 13 feet, looking at a Pioneer 50 inch plasma.good move??..Then I need a DVD player that will make use of the Hi Def and give me a better picture on the screen..Was looking at the Arcam DV79, but now there is the Arcam P1000 due out, to further confuse me I have been told to go for Meridian..any advice or suggestions of where to look..thanks

Standard Member

welcome to the world of AV entertainment. I assume you also want full surround sound as this is 1/2 the movie vision experience? As the front end players you mention are designed also to deliver fabulous sounds as well as video. To set up a 'terrific tv room' you are going to need to do some serious research..... don't worry it's fun or sort of fun.

1) I Recommend you get / subscribe to a magazine e.g Home Cinema Choice at least read some mags in bookshops and keep informed before you part with your cash for kit.

2) You will need a budget and at least a guide as to what you want to spend on this kit. You can literally spend the price of Ferarri if you want to, or less well less than 10k for the lot.

3) You will also benefit from visiting Hifi / vision specialist store/s and once you tell them 2) above, and tell them your expectations they will guide you. You can then cross check their advice to your Magazine research in 1) above and these forums.

4) In the types of kit you mention:
- you may want to consider a projector as the dedicated size room you mention would be wonderful for larger screen size than 50inch, and some projectors give superb images if you have controlled light in the room i.e can make it dark.
- You mention Arcam and Meridian - to me Arcam is good quality middle price range hifi / AV kit - good bang for the buck. Meridian is heading toward the esoteric, very refined if you have the ear for such things and the wallet. Meridian is seriously good and seriously expensive, and if you have this budget, wonderful, but to get a 'Meridian level' (full kit out, player / amps / speakers that match the quality of the player) - you could spend 30k plus on just the gear.

5) Some caution with spending serious audiophile / videophile money on your kit - especially the AV stuff the technology moves so fast it loses it's value quickly. But if you are after the dogs bol***ks and can afford it - wow nice one - enjoy.

Well-known Member

Hi,
You are looking at some very nice kit for your setup. However your post suggests you are very new to this so I would advise you to take your time, read up on what you want and most importantly take expert advice. Compile a short list of what you like the look and sound of, then make sure you demo them thoroughly to ensure you can live with them. As for your question, As for yor initial question, Arcam make some very nice gear but the best person to decide if you will like it is you.

Active Member

As for electronics, it depends on your budget, asthetic taste and whether you will be listening to a lot of music.

Buy some mags and have a good old read. The What Hifi awads issue has just come out and there are lots of good systems in there.

If you are looking at a first system without travelling too far down the road of diminishing returns I would suggest as a starting point.

Projector, screen and automation for lights/curtains etc. £5-10K???

Reciever in the £1-2000 category. Pioneer, Denon and Yamaha are well liked.
DVD player in the £700-£1000 category.
Speaker package for around £2k Wholly dependent upon taste. The monitor audio RS6AV system seems to be a well liked solution.

Please note that these are my candidates for a dedicated HT system with plenty of space and with and eye to keeping the budget sensible.

Let us know what you get. New stuff is cool. Even if it is someone elses

Guest

well to answer the questions...Im not going for a projector at the moment due to cost, might put one over the plasma screen at a later date..
How much? Im doing a bit of the work on my extension and hope to save about £7k on the cost which is going to pay for the system...or at least to start me off.
I have read up on loads of facts and been buried in the mags for several weeks ie what hi fi, hi life, etc etc..
I have visited several shops including Harrods in London which has a fantastic display of plasma screens...the best picture was on the LG sets but that might be something to do with what looked like a high def advert. I think I have decided 90% to get the Pioneer...reviews are great.
I have at the moment a set of the KEF eggs which are ok but I would like better, the same goes for amp...
the only item I feel I must change is the DVD player, I have a Sony top of the range well it was 5 years ago??!! it works well BUT as far as I understand it to get a high def image on the screen I need a DVD player that fills in the missing dots..which my sony cant do....and until a high def dvd player is available this is the best I can do...so at the moment Im thinking Arcam because of cost. Unless someone can tell me of a better choice that does the same job??

Distinguished MemberAVForums Sponsor

Your requirements don't merit a Meridian DVD player or similar and a Projector+Screen is no more or less costly that the Display your considering; though a projector does have a relatively small running cost as lamps (bulbs) are user replaceable parts.

There are currently no commercially available High Definition DVD's in the formats that are targeted at Europe (Blu-ray DVD and HD DVD) and therefore there are no HD players on the market.

The closest you'll get currently is a Networked DVD player that can 'stream' HD content from a PC harddrive.

I'd hang on to your Sony player for now and invest your money in the Display plus decent sound system - when HD does come along you can invest in an HD player.

With your budget and knowing what tends to happen when a bunch of blokes get together to watch the footie I'd be wanting a pretty decent sound system - especially so if the system is to double up as your Movie screen.

Whatever drivel you've been told re filling in the dots forget you ever heard it - DVD's are all Standard Definition (PAL or NTSC) somewhere along the video chain the info on the disc has to be 'scaled' to fill the 'HD Ready' Display or Screen your installing and the Pioneer XDE PlasmaTV your contemplating does a perfectly good job of filling its screen with picture information.

The latest 'trend' is to have your DVD player do some of the image 'scaling' before it hits the screen - if done correctly it can pay dividends; however they are not huge and personally I'd save the cash for now.